<p>Felix Varela Senior High Physics</p><p>Motion Maps</p><p>A motion map represents the position, velocity, and acceleration of an object at various clock readings. (At this stage of the class, you will be representing position and velocity only.) </p><p>Suppose that you took a stroboscopic picture of a car moving to the right at constant velocity where each image revealed the position of the car at one-second intervals. This is the motion map that represents the car.</p><p>We model the position of the object with a small point. At each position, the object's velocity is represented by a vector.</p><p>If the car were traveling at greater velocity, the strobe photo might look like this:</p><p>The corresponding motion map has the points spaced farther apart, and the velocity vectors are longer, implying that the car is moving faster. </p><p>If the car were moving to the left at constant velocity, the photo and motion map might look like this:</p><p>More complicated motion can be represented as well. Unit II Reading 1 Felix Varela Senior High Physics</p><p>Above, an object moves to the right at constant velocity, stops and remains in place for two seconds, then, moves to the left at a slower constant velocity.</p><p>Consider the interpretation of the motion map below. At time t = 0, cyclist A starts moving to the right at constant velocity, at some position to the right of the origin.</p><p>Cyclist B starts at the origin and travels to the right at a constant, though greater velocity. At t = 3 s, B overtakes A (i.e., both have the same position, but B is moving faster).</p><p>A graphical representation of the behavior of cyclists A and B would look like this:</p><p>You could also represent the behavior algebraically as follows:</p><p> x  v A t  x0 , for A where vB > vA x  vB t , for B</p><p>Throughout this semester, you will be representing the behavior of objects in motion in multiple ways: diagrammatically (motion maps), graphically, and algebraically.</p><p>Unit II Reading 1</p>